I'm back! - Stoltzekleiven Opp 2015

At last! Stoltzekleiven Opp 2015 came and went. I tried a new strategy this year: a lot of rest the week before the race. And it seems to have worked!

My training towards this year's Stoltzekleiven race was not giving the results I could hope for. But I had a slight consolation: since I have been doing many different things after the summer holidays, every time I practiced at Stoltzekleiven I had the stiffness of another training session in my legs. So I thought: if I will have any chance at the race, I need to rest my legs well.

My last practice at Stoltzekleiven was on Monday, five days before the race. During this past week I canceled all my HSR exercises and most of my strength training. On Tuesday I had my regular PT session, with some leg exercises, mainly back of legs and hamstrings, but we kept the weights and the number of repetitions low. On Wednesday and on Thursday I did nothing; complete rest for the legs and for rest of the body! Friday afternoon, I had a light walk/run just to get my legs going again. Zone 1 running for about 25 minutes, with a couple of 2 minute fast runs, and then about 15 minutes walking; in total 5 km. On Saturday, the race day, my starting time was late in the afternoon, so I took a walk in the morning, and then did some stretching exercises.

While I was waiting for my starting time,  I was lying on the couch and watching the broadcast from the race, and getting more and more nervous about it. I did a lot of mental training during this time. I kept telling myself that it is all in my head. I had trained well, and now I had well-rested legs, so there should be no reason for not achieving a good time, if only I was able to push myself hard enough. I studied various race statistics that corresponded to a finishing time that I wanted: below 15 minutes, and I tried to envision myself throughout the whole course doing exactly the right things.

One and a half hours before the race, I could not stand being at home anymore, so I went down to the racing area. I was lucky to meet several good friends as soon as I arrived at there, and that calmed me a lot. I started warming up, and my legs felt better than in a long long while. I kept in mind the warm up advice from dear friends, and did both slow jogs and short fast uphills to get the heart rate going without wearing out the legs. Just before the start, I took a few sips of sports gel, to trick my brain to jump with an energy boost.

I had planned to start slow, but my legs and breath felt light, so I jogged all the way until the stairs started. I had a good feeling, and started believing that this could work out, if I remained focused. A good colleague had given the advice to think "forward" rather than "upward", so I kept saying "forward" in my head all the time. It all went pretty easy and well until half way, and my time there was a lot better than I was planning for. I felt happy but also a little worried that I perhaps started a bit too hard. I kept talking to myself "Don't mess this up now; if you just keep going steady, it will work out". I imagined the voices of all my friends who helped me up during practices, and told myself to keep pushing, resisting the tiny opportunities of a little rest here and there.

My heart rate was 172 throughout the second half, so I knew that I was working at maximum level. At the wooden stairs towards the end, I did several different things, and this was actually well planned ahead. To be able to push hard until the stairs, I promised myself the reward of putting my hands on the stairs as soon as I reached them. So I crawled on both hands and feet on the first staircase, then I got up and pulled myself up using the side bars on the second staircase, and then at the last staircase I did something I never tried before; I ran! All of this was based on advice from and discussions with training buddies, and I think it worked pretty well for me, although it was a risk to do it at the race before trying it out first.

For the last few meters after the wooden stairs I had to mobilize all willpower I had to keep running; my whole body was aching, and when I threw myself on the ground after passing finish, I knew that I had given it all, and I was very happy. When I heard my time being announced on the loudspeakers, 14:39, I could have started crying if I had the energy.

14:39 is my second best time ever, and my best official time, and after months of injury and limited opportunities of training, I am so happy and relieved to have achieved it. There are so many people I want to thank, so many friends in Fjellgeitene, Melkesyre and Varegg who gave good advice and shared their experiences with me. I am so grateful to all of you, and I feel so lucky and blessed to be a part of such a group of wonderful people.

And yes, Frank had an official personal best at the race, too: 12:17! And his sister Gro (12:50), and our brother in-law Børre (11:49), and so many of our friends. It simply shows that we get better as we get older!

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. (Mark Twain)

The meaning of life (is not Stoltzekleiven)

The Stoltzekleiven Opp race is approaching; it is on Saturday! During early spring, especially when I was trying various therapies and was advised to take it easy on running,  I walked up Stoltzekleiven frequently to keep up my conditioning and get enough cardio training. I reached my best recording ever in February when I managed to do it in 14 minutes and 25 seconds with the help of my friend Mats, who was with me and motivated and pushed me all the way. Although my injury worsened from then on, and I could not run at all after some time, my leg strength improved thanks to HSR exercises three times a week, in addition to strength training twice a week. Just before he summer holidays I was able to do 14:50 at Stoltzekleiven all by myself.

Unfortunately, the three weeks of summer holidays worsened my Stoltzekleiven form much more than I was expecting. After the summer holidays, walking up to Stolzekleiven was one of the first things I did, and for several weeks it was impossible to get below 16 minutes. I must admit that I got quite a lot stressed by this. After all, Stoltzekleiven was the only thing remaining on my A list, and during early spring I was pretty sure that I would manage to go below 14 at this year's race. Now however, even going below 15 seems to be tough...

After the summer holidays I did quite a bit of steep mountain fast walking, in Jotunheimen, at Gullfjellet, at Skåla, and at Storehesten, and I thought that would be good training for Stoltzekleiven. I also did some biking and swimming in connection with training for my first triathlon, and although this meant less training at Stoltzekleiven itself, I was hoping that it would give good varied improvement of my general form that would also be of help at Stoltzekleiven. This is exactly what happened last year. I was mainly training for Oslo half marathon through August and September, and not at all training at Stolzekleiven, except for participating at trial races. Still I improved my time by 48 seconds last year compared to the year before. So the half marathon training helped my Stoltzekleiven form a lot. Unfortunately the same side effect did not come this year from triathlon training and participating in uphill races.

While I was feeling quite depressed about the whole Stoltzekleiven thing, last week I received the very sad news that a very good and old friend of mine died. This news really took me off guard and shook me more than I could have imagined. Until now I have been blessed to be able to say that I have never regretted anything that I have done in life. But for the first time I regret something I have not done. I am so sorry that I did not have more contact with my friend during the past couple of years. We used to be very close, but our contact recently limited itself to email and message exchanges, and I regret so much not having called more often and not having asked more often how he was. His illness progressed suddenly very quickly at the end, so perhaps I would anyway not be able to catch him to say a final goodbye, but the bare thought that I was worried about running injuries and Stoltzekleiven while he was fighting for his life is quite unbearable. This is also why I am a few days late with last week's blog post. For a while none of the stuff I have been writing about seemed important or worth writing about anymore.

On the other hand, being reminded about how short and unpredictable life is made me appreciate even more how important it is to make the best of every single day of life. Being passionate about something, no matter what it is, makes us experience all the emotions that human beings are capable of. I decided to continue with my blog and to try harder at Stoltzekleiven for the memory of my friend, who loved running. At the same time, I was discussing my lacking improvement at Stoltzekleiven with my trainer Ketil, and he warned me that my negative and stressed attitude could be affecting my performance. I decided to let my shoulders down and not get stressed about the resulting time. Just try harder and do my best. With this background, on Thursday, I came closer to 15 minutes than in a long while, with 15:11.

Yesterday I participated in the last trial run of this year's Stoltzekleiven race, and my time worsened to 15:25. But I was just back from a wonderful weekend at Kjerag and Preikestolen (where the first and the last pictures are from), and I comforted myself that perhaps my legs were tired from the hikes of the weekend. This year, I have been so lucky to be able to do several of the most spectacular mountain hikes of Norway, like Trolltunga and Besseggen, and now Preikestolen. With the sudden loss of a dear friend reminding me how fragile life is, it feels good to have grabbed the opportunities of these adventures when they showed up. No matter how Stoltzekleiven 2015 goes, I will always have the wonderful memories of these trips. And there will hopefully be many more Stoltzekleiven races for me in the future.

“Life is short. Break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anything that made you smile.” (Mark Twain)

Report from rehab - IV: injuries connect us

Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light (Dylan Thomas)

I started writing this blog when I was on top of the world. I had just completed my second half marathon and joined Melkesyre, and my shape was better than ever before. It was intended to be a blog about endless victories, triumphs, and new records, motivational and hopefully inspiring. There have been many posts of this character, but as you know there have also been many many posts about injuries, rehabilitation, not being able to run, and how to recover. Interestingly, the posts that are related to injuries and rehab have perhaps been the most popular ones.

Unfortunately, it turns out that many of us have long lasting injures, and we all make the same mistakes. Friends, acquaintances, and sometimes complete strangers approach me to discuss their injuries, and there are many interesting stories. I had never dreamed of this blog being of help in this way, but I am very happy that it seems to give relief to some people. And it is great therapy for me too,  I learn a lot from every story! Sadly, one common thing in all them is that we all seem to struggle and spend a lot of time and money before we find a therapist who is actually able to help us. Another main ingredient is that we are all easily motivated people who like to push ourselves, but whereas motivational input is easy to get, but we do not get much advice about sensible training and restitution (or perhaps we do, but we choose to ignore it).

Here is the most important piece of information I gathered during this period, which I did not know before, and which explains why we get injured, especially those of us around my age: Muscles and lungs do not age. Then have the ability to improve endlessly; the more you push and train, the stronger your muscles (including your heart) and your breathing capacity will become, and you will get faster and stronger all the time. When an adult increases his or her level of training, this is exactly what happens. It is extremely motivating, and you simply want more of it. As it all seems to be going well, you keep pushing and improving, and feeling wonderful, all the time. So far so good. But there is a backside to the story. Unfortunately, tendons, bands, joints, and ligaments DO age. They do not have the same capacity and ability as the muscles and the lungs. They get harder, stiffer, and brittle as we age, and they cannot always keep up with the intensity of the work. When care is not taken, at some point something gets destroyed and you are injured. This is exactly what happened to me.

I started to feel the first pain at the back of my right thigh in October 2013, about two years ago. I cannot pinpoint an exact trauma, a sudden pain during a single run, it was more that it came gradually, and I could feel a discomfort every time I was running. Still, this was not really a big problem, after I got warmed up I could run fast and long without much pain, and with some massaging afterwards it would go quickly away until the next time. In March 2014, I started to increase my mileage and ran longer and longer, finally participating in Bergen City half marathon in April 2014. Although the injury did not really bother me that much during running, it started to bother me outside of running, like bending down to tie my shoe or pickup something from the floor became increasingly unpleasant. In May 2014, I had an MRI examination, which showed some edema in the middle of right buttock, and I started regular physiotherapy sessions. What happened later is already explained in several blog posts:

• As nothing improved, actually things got worse, I tried many different therapies.
•  During this time, although the pain got stronger, I refused to slow down, and just continued to run.
• Finally the injury climaxed and it was not possible to run anymore; I was forbidden to use my legs for 4 weeks.   
• After these weeks, the HSR therapy started.
• I was allowed to use my legs, but no running! I did a lot of uphill walking and strength training.
• In the summer, I concentrated on swimming as alternative training.
• After the summer, going back to uphill training gave a new boost in the healing of the injury.
• I started to race again; uphill races first, like Skåla Opp and Storehesten Opp.
• To keep myself motivated and amused, I tried out new things, like triathlon and open water swimming.

Now, I am slowly going back to running, and increasing my mileage cautiously. Yesterday, for the first time in several months, I participated in the regular Saturday uphill intervals of Melkesyre. There was no pain, and it simply felt wonderful. So have I fully recovered? No, not according to myself, but my physiotherapist says that my tendon is now strong enough to try out more and more running. I have almost no pain when doing my HSR exercises, and I can do a single leg back plank on my injured leg, and a single leg side plank on my injured side, without pain. There is still some discomfort and stiffness, but Ane says that it is mostly in my head now. My brain is used to sending out pain signals when the injured area is in action, and to be on the safe side it continues to send these signals even when things have healed. The recipe ahead is: try running more, but not more often than every other day. If pain or discomfort, step back, don't do exactly the same thing for a few days, before trying again.

But what should I do in the future to say out of injury? Of course one solution is moderation. Just do not exercise or run that much. I will then not improve that much either, but just being in good (not necessarily the best) shape is good enough for many. But what if you, like me, want to push it to the limits of your muscles and lungs, well then we have to learn to train more sensibly and more smart. Resting is very important, and as we get older we need more rest. I have also finally understood why zone 1 training is important. Not only does it improve your ability to run faster at lower heart rate, but our body also gets an incredible rush of HGH (human growth hormone - which gives us recovery and muscle repair)  during the first 30-40 minutes of a zone 1 session (after than it goes down to more regular values). So, for example, doing a 30 min zone 1 in the morning and a 30 min zone 1 in the afternoon, is better than doing an hour zone 1 at once. We also need days of complete rest; no training of any kind. But how to be able to get enough training and and enough rest? Perhaps training twice some days of the week might be a good way to achieve this? It requires care and dedication, and it would work best if you actually had time to sleep an hour after the first workout of the day. But who in full work has time for that? The most important thing seems to be to not waste time on moderate speed runs of moderate length, they do not improve our form according to professionals. We need long slow runs and short fast runs, or intervals. And not more than two or three real hard sessions a week. So many rules... what happened to the fun of just putting on your shoes and getting out whenever you feel for it? It is still out there, if that's what you want. You simply have to figure out what you want.

Then you will find a way; your own way!

Officially a triathlete: Os triathlon 2015

I have just completed Os triathlon! 750 meters swimming, 20 km cycling, and 5 km running. My finish time goal was 1:40. I finished in 1:37!

All right, be prepared, I will give you all the details! In particular, if you have never tried triathlon, but are interested, there are probably many things you are wondering about, to which you might find answers here. For triathlons and open water swimming in Norway, you normally need a wetsuit. I bought a Blueseventy Fusion a few weeks ago, which I have already tested out a few times. In addition to the wetsuit, one has a trisuit, which is a combined shorts and sleeveless t-shirt in one piece. You wear the trisuit under your wetsuit, and after completing the swimming part, you simply take off your wetsuit, and do your biking and running in the trisuit. The trisuit is made of stuff that resembles that of a bathing suit, so it is supposed to be tight and to dry very quickly. I tested my trisuit just once before today, during a test run of Os triathlon about three weeks ago. There are some issues about a trisuit, especially for women; should we have underwear beneath it or not? Asking friends and googling a bit gave the conclusion: no panties! However, when it comes to a bra, the opinions were divided. During the test run, I wore a bra, but I felt very wet and cold all the time during the biking. This time I decided to skip the bra, and it worked very well, especially since I wore a vest on top the trisuit after the swimming, as it was pretty windy today.

On Friday, I fetched my start numbers. There were a lot of them. Some to be placed on the bike, some on the helmet, and some on myself. I ended up buying a race belt also, as the number on myself had to be on the back during cycling, and in the front during running. No, it is not supposed to be easy... I made everything ready yesterday evening, so that all that remained for this morning was to put on the trisuit and some warmer clothes on top of it, and to have some breakfast. The competition was to start at 10:30, and I wanted to be there at around 9, to have enough time to figure out how the transition area works, where to place my bike and rest of my equipment. Normaly I like to eat about two hours before hard exercise, but that was exactly the time we needed to leave home to get there in time. So I ended up dividing my breakfast into two. I had some of it at 7:30 and some of it at 8:45 in the car on the way.

Frank was, as usual, the driver, the photographer, the cheerleader, the full support team! As soon as we arrived and parked, we found several of our Melkesyre friends, and it was great to talk to them, to ask their advice, and get some pep talk, as all of them who where there today are already triathletes (even Ironmans!).

I also found my good friend Ingunn there, who got me into trying triathlon, and whom I had all three of my training sessions with.  After chatting and cheering each other up a bit, we went to find our places in the bike racks. The numbers were placed pretty tight, so it was important that neighboring bikes were facing opposite directions. However, there was complete confusion about which direction to place your bike. It was supposed to hang by the seat, but should it face you or the other way? After discussing with many people and finally finding an official who could give the correct answer, fortunately the way that was the most intuitive for me turned out to be the correct way. Bike facing me, so that I could hang my helmet with glasses inside on the one handle, and hang the race belt and the vest on the other handle. Place the shoes in front, with socks inside, so they are all ready to go.

For this occasion, several weeks ago I borrowed the bike of my good friend Irene, who has a faster bike than my hybrid. Hers has also click-on pedals, and as we have the same shoe size, I even borrowed her click-on shoes. However, during my training, I figured out that the time ahead for Os triathlon was too short for me to get used to the click-on shoes. I fell once and hurt my hand (it is still not well yet), and after that I decided to do this one without the click-on shoes. I would simply bike with my running shoes, which would also save time in the transition between biking and running. I tried this out at the trial run, and it worked fine, and this is exactly what I did today, too. After placing everything neatly into its place, it was time to put on the wetsuit.

I had to be careful so that the timing device, which had to be placed around the left ankle, did not get torn away. Wet socks first, then the wetsuit, find the goggles, the cap, and the ear plugs, and then I was ready to do some warm up.

At this point, it was already 9:50, and the briefing was to start at 10:00. So I was really happy that we got there as early as 9 o'clock, which also gave me the time to use the bathrooms (long queue!) before putting on the wetsuit. The briefing ended at 10:10, and after that we were not allowed into the transition area. I went to the water side, and went into the water to get my goggles adjusted and fog-free and to get a light swim warm up. Everything felt good, I went out again, and did some warm up on the land while waiting for the start sound. Then we heard the sound "Ready!", I found myself a place by the water, and then went the start horn. I took it easy, as I had planned, and started swimming. It felt good at first, but just a second later somebody was swimming on top of me. I lost my breath, took a short stop, and started again. Unfortunately this repeated several times. I tried to stay away from people, but they just "attacked" me from all sides. I got an elbow in my ear, I had people pushing me to pass by, and I even had somebody pulling my leg! At least it felt like that. So, this is the part I don't understand. Why are people so aggressive during swimming? The same people are extremely nice during the biking and the running! To me it seemed pretty easy to find a "lane" and try to avoid other people, but every time I thought I found a rhythm some person would bump into me and get me out of it. Well, so the swimming did not go that well. It took me 17 minutes, and I should have been able to do it in 15, especially since I managed twice the distance in 33 minutes last week. But then there were much fewer people and everything was a million times more peaceful. Anyway, "Just live with it!" as they told us during the test run; that's just the way it is. Up from the water, I immediately started to run to the transition area, at the same time pulling the zipper of my wetsuit and already getting out of it on the way.

The way to my bike turned out to be much longer than expected; we had to run around the whole transition area before entering it, but finally I was there in front of it, with my wetsuit down to my waist. I managed to take it off more quickly than before, but I did sit down to take the socks off and to put on running socks and running shoes. I also took some time to drink a sports gel, and to drink some water. I am such a sissy during biking that I don't dare to start fiddling with the drinking bottle, so I had to fill up beforehand. On with the helmet and the glasses, on with the vest and the race belt, and off I went. We had to run with the bikes until the top of a hill, and then we were allowed to mount them and ride.

The biking part went better than expected. I completed 20 km in 46 minutes which is a new record for me. The path has uphills and downhills, and I was pleased with myself that I did not hit the breaks as often as the last time. I was also able to pass several people, especially towards the end, which gave a very good feeling. One of my friends, Michal, was one of the people on duty, watching the entry to a bridge that I was dreading a lot, and it calmed me immensely to see him there exactly at the worst point for me. I am also really happy that I did the trial run; the bridge was much less scary this time than the last. It is a narrow hanging bridge, and I just don't like such bridges. So my instinct is to bike exactly in the middle of it, which is not very easy with all the other bikers, plus some cars! Anyway, everything went well, and I came back to the transition area to leave the bike, the helmet and the glasses, and just grab a bottle of water and run! As I started I managed to remember to turn the race belt so that my number was facing forward. The running went so much better than the trial run, and I did a couple of minutes better than expected. My goal was to do the running in less than 30 minutes. Normally I am able to race a 5 km street run in about 25 minutes, but that is without the swimming and the biking beforehand (and my last race was in January!). The running course is slightly uphill all the way to the turning point, so I managed to keep my spirit up thinking that it would be downhill the last part. Unfortunately the uphills seem much more uphills than they actually are, so on the way back the downhills did not seem that much downhills. Still I finished in 27 minutes, above all expectations, and very pleased with that, especially since I have not had any running training for months!

As I passed the finish line, I heard that the speaker said my name and announced my time to be 1:37, at which point I gave a big shout and I was very very happy. The whole last week of August I was on travel and did not get to do any kind of training. This past week, I trained pretty hard on Tuesday (strength and uphill), but then I got sick, and I have been sick all the way until now. I am still a little bit reduced, but the best I have felt since Wednesday, so I don't think the sickness affected my performance that much. In fact, exactly as it was the case with Bergen City half marathon in 2014, perhaps being sick is the best preparation towards a race. It makes sure that you get enough rest!

After the finish, the Melkesyre racers found each other again, and it was time for a victory picture! Thank you all so much Freddy, Janne, Michal, Torunn, Ingunn, Wenche, and a couple of ladies whose names I don't know but who remembered me from the trial run and gave me thumbs up several times both before and during the race! The nicest part about the whole thing is that, as opposed to the trial run which felt very tough, the main experience today was FUN! It was indeed fun, and I was not expecting it. The distance of each exercise is not much, but put together it makes you think in a different way than when you are racing in only one of the disciplines. I must admit that I was looking forward to being done with Os triathlon, and I was not sure whether I wanted to continue with this. But right now, I am really motivated to try more. Short triathlons with the same distances as today but a lot more uphills involved would I think suit me well. Or longer distances but flat... perhaps an Ironman at some point?

Time will show.